Obviously the Wings’ inability to score has been the main issue but it’s a lot easier to address the goaltending problem than revamping the entire forward corps.

Bottom line, if Legace allows two goals in a game instead of three, the wings still need to SCORE three goals to win. That’s not happenening, so you can’t place the shoulder of the burden on Manny. He has played well enough for the Red Wings to win the series by now if they had scored even close to their regualar season pace.

I’m sorry to say I don’t have a great feeling about tonight. That said, a wounded Stevie is better than no Stevie (as we found out in ‘02), so I hope he plays.

I’m not ashamed to admit to fellow fans that I am 31 years old and there is a good chance I will shed at least a tear or two “over a stupid hockey game” (as some might say) tonight. I really hope that’s not necessary.

Now onto tonight’s game. I’m dreading tonight as well. It just seems like the team doesn’t care enough to get the win. To me, it seems like they’re waiting for the game to come to them, instead of going out and getting it themselves. It’s almost as if they expect the Oilers to make mistakes and hand them the game.

I really hope to see everyone show up tonight. As you said Matt, Manny has to be nothing short of stellar. He can’t allow a single soft goal tonight, he has to match Roloson. And I would like to see Pavel Datsyuk, Brendan Shanahan, Jason Williams, Nik Lidstrom et all come to life. The team desparately needs them.

And I hope Maclean plays tonight. He could provide that energetic spark the team needs by just going into the corners, going to the front of the net, and hitting the Oilers all over the place. If Yzie can go, it really will be a huge boost to the team. If their 40-year-old Captain can muster up the courage and will to fight for the team’s playoff life, the rest of the guys can draw on that. I really don’t want to see Yzie go off into the sunset on a first round loss. He deserves to go out with a Cup.

But above all else, we need a complete performance tonight. They have to play hard for a full 60 minutes, not just 20 or 25. If the Wings can have an awesome second period, I think they’ll beat the Oilers.

Come on guys, win it for the Captain!

Some of it is that the players not producing like they did during the regular season. More of it is just Edmonton doing a good job shutting them down. Although the “trap” is still uncertain to me (is the “trap” taking away the neutral zone? please let me know because I’m still unsure), it seems to be getting to Detroit, as well as the fans. Several articles talk about this “trap” and how no force of man can beat it and it will soon engulf the world in all of it’s power and glory. However, I’m not seeing it. I think Detroit is just not playing up to par and Edmonton is taking a huge advantage of it. They are simply outplaying us.

And good call about Yzerman, I agree 100%. With the captain playing, I feel the Wings will get a huge boast of confidence. Another good call, Samuelsson (I feel) is experiencing rookie playoff jitters of some sort, his production this series is unnoticable. You also mentioned the first couple of goals are crutial. Like we all know, the Wings play well (for the most part) with a 2 goal lead. If they can get the early goals in the first period, they’ll win. If not, we just have to hope they win the game in OT.

Hopefully the Wings will win. They are certainly capable of it.

-firebird995